


The Kepler Conjecture

by Querulousgawks



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Adjusting to college, M/M, Missing Scene, Pre-Series, Pre-Slash, Undiagnosed Test Anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-06-05 07:25:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6695224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Querulousgawks/pseuds/Querulousgawks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They had a couple of fights over it, the flaring, circling kind that wound around from Holster's misery in the face of spreadsheets to Ransom throwing up before, whatever, only very important tests in specific subjects. Early-friendship fights, as intense as their drift compatibility on the ice, the kind that really meant <em>you matter so much more than I expected, I’m worried, this is too good to fuck up.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Kepler Conjecture

The thing is, Ransom & Holster actually do move their furniture around a lot.

Holster is a spatial reasoner, a fiddler. Ransom had been waiting most of their freshman year for him to ditch economics and switch to something more design-oriented, less bor- uh, theoretical. They had a couple of fights over it, the flaring, circling kind that wound around from Holster's misery in the face of spreadsheets to Ransom throwing up before, whatever, only very important tests in specific subjects. Early-friendship fights, as intense as their drift compatibility on the ice, the kind that really meant _you matter so much more than I expected, I’m worried, this is too good to fuck up._

They never spent longer than ninety seconds on the hard stuff, always closed out a fight with the kind of complaints that were basically conversation: the aesthetic merits of Ransom's Samwell swim trunks, Holster's absurd belief in the Haus ghosts. Still, the flashes of intensity left Justin with the same ugly pressure of anxiety he knew from Chem 2 quizzes, and it needed to go _somewhere._

So he'd shrug off the last snotty remark about overpriced merch and say something like, "if we stuck both beds in the alcove, we could probably practice shots in here." 

Justin Oluransi did not give one shit where the beds went. But it worked beautifully: by the time they were done breaking down the bunks and hauling them under the eaves, his pulse was steady and Holster's mouth was relaxed again, coaxed out of its defensive smart-career-choice pinch. And by the time Holster had stared at the beds for a minute, moved them far enough apart for a night table, shaken his head briskly and then pushed them together to one side, and, finally, huffed out a breath and pushed them still-together to the other side, Ransom was even relaxed enough to laugh about it. 

Ransom cut off the waffling by flopping diagonally across the beds - which were really just one bed, now that he thought of it. One giant bed. He was about to follow that thought somewhere, but Holster's thwarted glare turned to a telltale smirk; Ransom caught the look and braced himself just before all six-and-a-half feet of American hockey player launched crosswise over his middle. 

_"Ffff,"_ he gasped, Holster's broad rib cage digging in where all Ransom’s air used to live.

"Uck," Holster finished helpfully. Ransom wormed vengeful fingers briefly into his side - Adam was bony still, couldn't eat his way out of hockey and what had to be his last, late, growth spurt, no matter how much Jack muttered about protein - but eventually they fell still and lay in an X on the uber-bed, staring peacefully at the ceiling.

The uber-bed. Something had been bugging Justin about that, before they ended up here. It felt great now, all this room to sprawl and the low safe feeling of the eaves, but - 

“I guess it looks kind of gay,” he said slowly.

Adam craned his head up to shoot him an inquiring look, which gave him -heh- about six chins. Justin took a moment to enjoy the weirdness on someone so skinny, then remembered where he was going with this. “The bed, I mean.”

Adam’s face cleared, and then started to move into some other expression just before he dropped his head back down. His voice was casual, amused. “Yeah, but it’s Samwell.”

Ransom snorted. “Plus you sing _a cappella_ ," he said, relaxing. "And I have great fucking style.”

“You have curly script on the ass of your swim trunks,” Adam agreed. (He probably thought he was contradicting, but whatever. Those shorts were spectacular.) After a minute, he said thoughtfully, “Girls’ll think it’s hot - not those trunks,” he added as Ransom opened his mouth. “I mean the one-bed thing.”

That was - news to Justin, really. “What, like guys do? With girls?”

“That’s what Shitty says. Came up in gender studies.”

Ransom laughed. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was the image of Shitty - pretty ridiculous on his own - going wide-eyed and taking notes as some girl lectured him about the female gaze. Or maybe he was just happy, tired, lying on this bed having a conversation that would have been totally weird and off with some other dude, but felt just fine with Holster. Story of his whole semester, really - story of college so far. They were lucky. 

“Shitty would know, I guess,” he said comfortably, and dozed off to the sound of Adam’s chuckle turning to a sigh.


End file.
